A Blog For Thelma Todd
Thelma Todd was a star of silent movies and later the talkies. She is remembered as much today for her mysterious death as she is for her films. In this blog, we take a look at Thelma Todd, her movies, and various commentaries.

Tuesday, December 2, 2014

Our Gang In Dell's MARCH OF COMICS #3

Dell's MARCH OF COMICS was a free comic book given away by stores with their name printed on it as an advertisement. This particular issue was originally published in 1947, and features an Our Gang story by Walt Kelly.

Although Walt Kelly's depiction of Buckwheat has been criticized, he claimed himself to have made the character less of a stereotype, and changed his name from "Buckwheat" to "Bucky"*. I haven't read many of these comics, but I notice here that Buckwheat is the only one of the kids shown to have a job. This echoes the images of black people being gainfully employed in early Pogo stories, which never show white people as having any kind of a job at all. To me, it would seem that Walt Kelly thought he was depicting these black characters in a favorable light.

*During that period, the name "Bucky" was used by Marvel for Captain America's kid sidekick, and presumably would have sounded more heroic that "Buckwheat".